Nine AP top-25 college basketball teams are in action on the first weekend slate after Christmas, and we have you covered with our top player props and best bets for Saturday based on the best college basketball odds.
Two of college basketball's three remaining undefeated teams are in action Saturday as James Madison hosts Texas State and Houston hosts Pennsylvania.
In the only game on Saturday's slate between two ranked teams, Creighton visits Marquette in a battle of top-three preseason Big East favorites, and the loser will have two conference losses before the calendar turns to January.
Here are our college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday (odds via our best March Madness betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Saturday's college basketball schedule and odds
(Odds via DraftKings)
- Pittsburgh (-1) vs. Syracuse
- Virginia (-9.5) vs. Notre Dame
- Creighton vs. Marquette (-4)
- Texas State vs. James Madison (-13)
- Virginia Tech vs. Wake Forest (-3.5)
- Indiana State vs. Michigan State (-9.5)
- Wichita State vs. Kansas (-13)
- Pennsylvania vs. Houston (-25.5)
Saturday's college basketball best bets
- Kevin McCullar Over 18.5 points vs. Wichita State (-115 via DraftKings) ????
- Kerr Kriisa Under 1.5 3-pointers made vs. Ohio State (+100 via DraftKings) ???
- Marquette -3.5 vs. Creighton (-110 via BetMGM) ?????
- Virginia -9 vs Notre Dame (-110 via Caesars) ????
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Saturday's college basketball player props
When Kansas landed the most prized transfer in the offseason in Michigan's Hunter Dickinson, most expected he would take on much of the scoring load for one of the most talented teams in the country. However, Kevin McCullar is surprisingly on track to join, if not replace, Dickinson on first-team All-American lists, as he has provided the necessary backcourt scoring punch by averaging a team-high 20.4 points per game.
The Jayhawks looked sluggish in their last game before the holiday break at home against Yale, which was unsurprising given the gauntlet of consecutive games against UConn, Missouri, and Indiana they played leading up to that.
However, McCullar saved his best for when the team needed it most, scoring a career-high 34 points against the Bulldogs. He has now scored 21-plus points in four of the previous five games.
Wichita State ranks in the top 50 in 3-point percentage defense, in large part because its first two opponents combined to shoot 9-for-58 from the perimeter. That included a 0-for-21 performance from Western Kentucky, a game that ShotQuality graded as a 22-point Hilltoppers win, not the 10-point Shockers win that was the actual result.
The expected defensive regression should come against a Jayhawks squad that leads the nation in assists per field goal made, and McCullar should stretch the Shockers' defense, as he has made multiple 3-pointers in four of the last five.
Arizona transfer Kerr Kriisa is still getting his legs under him for West Virginia after being suspended for the first nine games of the season for accepting impermissible benefits when he was at his former school. And though Kriisa has played at least 32 minutes in all three games since he's been back, he's been held to 12 or fewer points twice and is about to face his best defensive opponent by far.
Kriisa has made 41.7% of his 3-point attempts (10-of-24), but Ohio State does a solid job of running teams off the 3-point line, as teams shoot fewer than 35% of their shots from beyond the arc (nearly a bottom-100 rate) when facing the Buckeyes.
Kriisa has shot 36.6% or better from the perimeter in two of his first three college basketball seasons, but those came at Arizona, who had much more of a post-up presence to take defensive attention away from him.
We are enticed by the plus-money odds that DraftKings offers for Kriisa to make one or fewer 3-pointers, especially as the O/U for his points prop is not even double-digits (9.5 at DraftKings).
Saturday's college basketball game picks
Our most confident point spread pick comes from this top-22 Big East clash, as we do not think Creighton is tough enough to compete on the road against an elite squad. The Bluejays tumbled out of the top 10 largely because they couldn't hold on to a 14-point second-half lead in their overtime loss to Villanova, a game in which they committed 16 turnovers and shot just 20.8% from 3-point range.
Marquette is a bad matchup for Creighton as it has so much defensive versatility, meaning its ability to switch at any position on ball screens will force the Bluejays to play in isolation much more than it would like (Creighton has one of the lowest isolation rates of any Power 6 team).
In addition, Marquette forces turnovers at a top-13 rate (22.8%), while Creighton ranks dead last (362nd out of 362 D-I teams) in turnovers forced (10.6%). Thus, reigning Big East Player of the Year Tyler Kolek will have plenty of freedom to operate the Golden Eagles' offense.
Kolek has 10 assists in each of Marquette's last two victories, and he should not be harassed into multiple turnovers as he has committed in five consecutive games.
This five-star play is in support of a Marquette team that has covered 75% of its games (9-3-1 ATS) against ranked opponents under head coach Shaka Smart. BetMGM and FanDuel are the only two of our best sports betting apps that offer Marquette -3.5, but the latter charges -120 in juice to back the favorites. Both lines are a great value compared to the -4.5 offered at Caesars.
Virginia has led at halftime in the last six day games against Notre Dame, and all of those teams were more talented than this year's Fighting Irish squad. And Saturdays have not been kind at all to Notre Dame, which has lost each of its last nine such games.
Virginia went into its game against Memphis allowing the lowest transition rate in the country, and offensively having the highest unguarded jump shot rate in D-I, per Synergy. However, Virginia's 23-point road loss was largely because it was its first road game and because Memphis's David Jones scored 26 points on 8-of-15 shooting.
Notre Dame doesn't have anyone like Jones on its roster, and the Fighting Irish rank 314th or worse in adjusted offensive efficiency, effective field-goal percentage, and 3-point shooting percentage.
The Cavaliers rebounded nicely from their loss to Memphis by scoring a blistering 1.30 points per possession against Morgan State. And though it is risky laying near double digits in a game with an O/U of 114 points, that is how little faith we have in Notre Dame's offense.
Caesars is the only one of our best sports betting sites at which Virginia is at -9, as all other competitors are at -9.5. However, we would not put anyone off wagering on the -9.5 at FanDuel, which charges minimal -102 odds to back the favorites.
College basketball best bets made Friday at 8:42 p.m. ET
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